Goetia and psychology - to bind or bargain?
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93s
I've seen that some modern Geotic Magicians are advocating a "bargain-making" approach rather than a binding approach. I know that Ramsey Dukes proposes this in "Uncle Ramsey's Little Book of Demons: The Positive Advantages of the Personification of Life's Problems". Apparently he performed the Abramelin Operation in 1977 so I would personally consider him a bit of an authority on this type of work. It seems that others too, like Jake Stratton Kent advise this approach.
Now I'm very inexperienced with Goetia personally, however I'm sort of undergoing therapy as per Regardie's suggestion - with the lack of good Jungian Analysts that understand the occult I have to do this myself of course (along with bouncing ideas off some fairly wise people that I know), so I've developed a system of "Jungian dialogue" where I have a "little chat" with my own "neuroses" so to speak....eg: "Why am I feeling this way, why do I sabotage myself?" and so on and so forth. Of course sometimes the answers (a little voice within) are a little startling, with a virtue suddenly appearing as a vice and vice versa!
Anyway, so I see this is as a sort of "lower manifestation" of proper Goetic bargain-making, however I'm a little nervous to "make bargains" at this stage of my magickal development - I'm prepared to make dialogue and even indulge the occasional vice to appease it "consciously" so that it does not jump out from the unconscious and drag me down. As Jung said, "If you don't let it in the front door, it'll come through the back door".
Anyway, I just thought that perhaps we could discuss this topic both in terms of a full goetic setup as well as perhaps from a "therapy" point of view (what to do to manage your "demons" while you're on the path to KCHGA). Anyone got some wise word or experiences to share?
93s
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My 2 cents - go to an actual therapist. The therapist doesn't have to be up on occult theory in order to help you through your psychological issues (in much the same way that a mechanic doesn't have have to have K&C in order to properly repair your car). That said - be prepared to shop around a bit before settling on a long-term therapist (just like you would with a mechanic, if you value your car).
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Having a psychological disorder can be a problem while working with all sorts of Qliphothic powers and entities. I would not advise working with the Goetia to any person that I would not think of as "sound".
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@atlantis said
"Having a psychological disorder can be a problem while working with all sorts of Qliphothic powers and entities. I would not advise working with the Goetia to any person that I would not think of as "sound"."
I'd agree Atlantis. However upon deep introspection we all seem to have neuroses. As part of the human condition I think we all fall into mild depressions or mild states of anxiety depending on our circumstances....most of us aren't even aware of these, they're just "normal" reactions to our environments.
Personally, in terms of my own neuroses, well I've traced to the fact that I'm not following my True will yet. Feeling insecure about our circumstances seems to be the result of not being aware of the "True Self" so to speak. Of course if one has a diagnosed "psychiatric condition" then that is of course very different.
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One thing I think the psychiatric community did right, from a diagnostic angle, is when they framed disorders in terms of occupational functioning and relationships: Regardless of what the behavior is, if, in a mature adult, it interferes with occupational functioning and the maintaining of close interpersonal relationships, then it's a disorder. If not, then it's just "traits."
This is especially appropriate, I think, because the primary developmental task of early adulthood involves handling dependence-independence issues: Being able to support and sustain oneself autonomously, and to form intimate, connecting relationships.
Hmm. I guess you could call those vectors of "will" and "love."
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So long at this has to do with therapy and not medical diseases and drugs this is a good model. But its nonsense to claim that some one only has a disease if it upsets their lifestyle. This would be like claiming that you don't actually have tuberculosis unless your coughing up blood upsets your peers. So long as you can keep it hidden and not miss work, I guess you will never die and not need any medication.
I mean if you have organic dementia your brain is physically rotting away, and it will still be rotting away if you live in a tribal community than believes your delusions and hallucinations are spiritual.
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That's the silliest thing I ever heard.
TB is caused by a microbacteria, and it's clear cut and binary whether someone has it or not.
In psychology, you can't at this point empirically measure a person depression without asking subjective questions, and furthermore, most psychological issues fall on a continuum, rather than a yes/no as most infectious diseases do.
Therefore, any continuum grade is going to have to have arbitrary cutoff points. And quality-of-life seems to me to be the best rubric.
By the way, the physical rotting of the brain does not fall under psychology.
Your error is that you are clinging to the delusion that the brain and the mind are the same thing.
I refer you to studies, such as those by John Lorber in the '60s, where hundreds of people, whose brains had been displaced to varying degrees by hydrocephalus, were examined using CAT scans. Half of the people with 95% or more of the brain tissue missing had above average IQs.
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@Froclown said
"So long at this has to do with therapy and not medical diseases and drugs this is a good model. But its nonsense to claim that some one only has a disease if it upsets their lifestyle. This would be like claiming that you don't actually have tuberculosis unless your coughing up blood upsets your peers. So long as you can keep it hidden and not miss work, I guess you will never die and not need any medication.
I mean if you have organic dementia your brain is physically rotting away, and it will still be rotting away if you live in a tribal community than believes your delusions and hallucinations are spiritual."
Fro, this was speaking of purely psychological disorders, not necessarily medical / organic disorders.
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Bind and torture the little buggers like the grimoire says. I mean if you can bind them and force them to appear in the first place why bargain with them? At the same time I do think one should respect them, but like you would respect a wild dog. Unless of course you dont believe they are exactly what the grimoire says they are....Eh just my 2 cents.
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Well those books and techniques as well as the explanation of goetic phenomena were written under the Christian paradigm, which continued Zoroastrian dualism. Which is to say they work under the notion that there are GOOD and godly angels and forces vs those that are EVIL and demonic. Thus the idea was that acting under the authority of God and proving that authority by knowing the divine names one could compel the demons to do Gods WILL or else suffer the fire of Gods wrath, God acting on your own behalf.
Now in the Thelemic Paradigm, it is not God but the HGA whose "authority" commands the spirits. The HGA being the unified and ideal psychologically healthy SELF with a single WILL rather than full of desires and impulses that contradict and conflict with eachother. The Forces of heaven and hell in Thelema are located within the psyche, rather than projected out into the world. The HGA is Subjective higher self, the center of the personal perspective, rather than the Christian GOD as absolute center of the objective universe.
Since the spirits then are aspects of the psyche, rather than elements of heaven and hell, it would not be prudent to banish and admonish the spirits, as this would be "a folly against self". Rather it is wise to learn the true nature of each spirit and what drives it, what its goals and drives are. Then to integrate that spirit into your self, to limit its expression to positive influences that benefit your TRUE WILL. The HGA being the ideal self with all spirits of the psyche integrated to support the TRUE WILL.
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Froclown,
I also tend toward the psychological view, at least in my limited experience. Having said that I know the Goetic spirits at least in their descriptions are far from what we might associate with neuroses, although in Lon Milo's book "My life with the spirits", his description of his first goetic working does seem to relate to some kind of psychological breakdown.
Using a simple "lay psychology" example in the meantime (before I approach Goetic work proper), what I can't get my head around is that I can't see how our "inner victim", for example could possibly assist in the Great work (I believe we all have what could loosely be termed a "victim" somewhere in the psyche).
The only useful purpose I can fathom would be the "negative" - in other words to inspire the personality through dissatisfaction with falling into a victim mentality from time to time, to actually work to overcome it, or become a "conqueror" of one's world rather than a victim, so to speak.
So, the question is do you want to "bind" that "victim" for ever that it cannot influence you ("stamp down the wretched and the weak") or do you want to "integrate it" and bargain with it so as to make it s a useful resource ("I would rather be whole than good" - Jung)? What are the pros and cons of each method? Does binding definitely produce a long-term result and is that result "healthy" and useful? Conversely falling into victim mentality from time to time doesn't seem all that healthy either unless one can immediately recognize it and take steps to overcome the dissatisfactions in one's world that have resulted in that state. When dpeth psychologists talk about "making the unconscious conscious", does that mean that the personality should with intent an purpose indulge in that victim mentality from time to time? (Rather than it "comes through the back door" from time to time)?
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Well, you maybe should be left to figure this out for yourself in practice but I will give it away here anyway.
All these are pairs of opposites, Your victim and your hero are the same entity, that is you can't bind the victim without also binding the hero. They are two expressions of the same force. Evocation in general is usually about projecting one half into the triangle leaving the other half within your mind. If you unbalance these dualities too much you risk psychological breaks, which is the major danger with the Goetia. The benefit is to earn direct experience of these dualities, and some time to correct imbalances. Evocation is risky since your whole psyche can be become destabilized. Of course this I believe is a necessary stage in the Abramelin ritual, the total destabilized psyche manifests the unbalanced parts as the spirits which are immediately re-organized according to the HGA, which gives you a much more clear perspective on calling out the half-equation spirits as well as what it takes to balance them out again.
I charged into all this with no training or superiors, and the descriptions of the grades, spheres and such are very abstract so I can only explain my own experiences, i was never told this practice will produce yesod for example. So I tried my best to map my experiences, I can not say if I have attained Knowledge and conversation or not, According to some of my attempts to map I did. But without having followed a specific program, I can only guess.
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@Froclown said
"All these are pairs of opposites, Your victim and your hero are the same entity, that is you can't bind the victim without also binding the hero. They are two expressions of the same force."
I agree, although I would add that binding and bargaining are the same too, so long as you are looking at it from the psychological POV whereby the POV is the survivor (and not the victim).
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I don't see it as biding or bargaining but something more like assimilation, like the Borg on star trek. You find a life form take from it what is useful, purge it of what is inferior, and bring it's new cyborg form into the collective.
Just remember they don't go off to hell or out into the world when you are done with them, these spirits go back into your unconscious, so whatever you do to them while they are called out, realize this will effect their "relationship" with your conscious interests. So if you curse and admonish them, you might expect rebellion and insubordination later on. When you most need the inner hero, your admonishment of the need to feel the victim may fail to shift into hero mode. You may be left in insecurity when you most need to be confident.
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What I dont understand is why everyone uses the goetia to obtain material things and run errands for them, when the books lists many of them as teaching philosophy, liberal science or languages...
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@Froclown said
"Well, you maybe should be left to figure this out for yourself in practice but I will give it away here anyway.
All these are pairs of opposites, Your victim and your hero are the same entity, that is you can't bind the victim without also binding the hero."
Exactly my thoughts, which is why I'm questioning whether "binding" is "healthy" (or whether my understanding of binding is even correct, which is why, in my naivety, I'm more in favour of the "bargain-making" approach, having seen that a vice can become a virtue and vice versa!
@Froclown said
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They are two expressions of the same force. "Well I've been trying to find the hero in the Major Arcana, but it seems to be curiously absent? I suppose someone like Joseph Campbell would suggest that the hero is the one that wears "the masks" of all the Major Arcana at different times through his / her journey, though I seem to find the strongest correlation with the fool and in terms of the victim, the hanged man comes to mind. Of course, the simple idea of "Love" also comes to mind, in the sense that the victim is about self-Love and the Hero about "loving the world" so to speak.
@Froclown said
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Evocation in general is usually about projecting one half into the triangle leaving the other half within your mind. If you unbalance these dualities too much you risk psychological breaks, which is the major danger with the Goetia."Do you mean unbalancing during the actual evocation or during day-to-day life in that one might have improperly "banished" the other half into the unconscious rather than having "listened to it's point of view" and integrated it into the personality? I also wonder if those that have performed the Abramelin operation end up with a "permanent harmonization" or whether at some later stage these aspects of the unconscious re-emerge. I'm still waiting for delivery of Uncle Ramsey's little book of Demons where he advocates a bargain-making approach and he did perform the Abramelin operation in 1977 so I'm looking forward to reading about his point of view on the matter.
@Froclown said
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The benefit is to earn direct experience of these dualities, and some time to correct imbalances. Evocation is risky since your whole psyche can be become destabilized. Of course this I believe is a necessary stage in the Abramelin ritual, the total destabilized psyche manifests the unbalanced parts as the spirits which are immediately re-organized according to the HGA, which gives you a much more clear perspective on calling out the half-equation spirits as well as what it takes to balance them out again.
"hmm....do you think the operation itself, if followed "by the book" lends itself to attaining a correct "balancing" or do you think it is possible to do some serious damage in the Abramelin ritual if one does not take the proper attitude towards the spirits? I don't trust the idea of threatening with the burning of sigils in the old medieval method but on the other hand if we are to make bargains we must be careful what we promise in return. On the other hand I can imagine encountering some pretty "rebellious spirits".
@Froclown said
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I charged into all this with no training or superiors, and the descriptions of the grades, spheres and such are very abstract so I can only explain my own experiences, i was never told this practice will produce yesod for example. So I tried my best to map my experiences, I can not say if I have attained Knowledge and conversation or not, According to some of my attempts to map I did. But without having followed a specific program, I can only guess."Well thank you for citing your experience. I certainly find value in it and I'm sure others will too.
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Even if we use the psychological model for goetic work I see no reason why you would still not bind the spirits. Essentially they would represent untamed aspects of your psyche in which case you wouldnt bargain with them, you make them submit to the higher aspect of your conciousness. The threats are also made then to the more primitive aspects of your psyche because if they dont fall in line then they hurt the whole. Then the threats to them of living in a stinking hell (box with sulfur/asfoetida) is really letting them know what happens to a mind that isnt in order. No matter how much people try to escape duality, all life exists because of it, so use the tools that duality offers to bring everything into order. Does everyone think its a mistake that the spirits all have ranks and positions? They are like an unruly army, you cannot make an army function as a whole without disciplining it. Which is essentially what the binding and threatening is.
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@darrene2002 said
"Bind and torture the little buggers like the grimoire says. I mean if you can bind them and force them to appear in the first place why bargain with them? At the same time I do think one should respect them, but like you would respect a wild dog. Unless of course you dont believe they are exactly what the grimoire says they are....Eh just my 2 cents."
Agreed. There is no reason to bargain with demonic entities. Remember, given half the chance, they too would love to bind and torture.
Goetia is never something to take lightly.